Letting Go
by shabbytiger
Summary: One Shot for Eliot & Parker, set after Season 4 Episode One. A lot of confusion for my girl Parker. Hint of romance.


**Disclaimer: I own nuthin'. Happy now? :(  
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**Letting Go**

Eliot sat on the edge of his bed, one hand pushing his hair from his eyes, doing his best to talk himself out of answering the door.

The knocking continued despite his inner dialogue however, and despite the thousand reasons he had to just ignore it, there was one in favour of opening the door he simply could not dismiss.

Parker needed him.

As the knocking switched between cartoon theme songs, which he was impressed she could manage with just her knuckles and the door, and an insistent drumming, he sighed, knowing damn well this had to stop. He was honest enough to acknowledge that that was also why he was so reluctant to answer. He had to do what she wouldn't.

Grabbing a tee shirt and dragging it over his head he stalked toward the noise, and let her in without meeting her curious gaze and familiar smile. Instead he marched to the kitchen and began to gather the ingredients for pancakes. The tradition they had started a while back now, would end tonight. He knew it, and swallowed the uncomfortable knot the realisation formed in his throat. Parker closed the door with a soft click and settled in her usual seat at the breakfast bar. Her silence was not unsettling. But her anxiety was, and it toughened his resolve. She didn't even seem to know what she was doing, or that it was causing her stress. So bright, and so blind. He gritted his teeth and mixed batter.

"You didn't wait for me." Parker watched Eliot's back as he raided the fridge and lit the hob, his quick hands and movements comforting and completely unnerving at the same time. They had a routine. Whenever they were on a job together, which was often lately, they chilled out together too. Just, unwound from the action, and talked about how they could have done better, or worse. Mostly, they would just sit and he would show her knife tricks and the silence would be balm to the the chaos that she was feeling these last few months. This last job, well, she needed routine after it. Eliot still hadn't turned round, and she felt herself begin to panic.

"Didn't realise I had to." His tone was light, but his shoulders high, and Parker span on her stool at the bar, pushing at the work top, hoping that if she span quick enough, the world would right itself when she completed a 360. It didn't.

"Spence-" Not sure what to say to that, she paused mid speech, only to grip the surface tight as he whirled about, one hand still at the pan on the hob, the other raised and pointing a spatula toward her.

"There. Right there Parker. It's gotta stop." His eyes were fierce and brow creased, and she flinched, as something inside split open, but she smiled her brightest at him, eyes wider than she would have liked.

"O-kay then. I thought I was the official mayor of crazy town round here? Maybe you got altitude sickness after all. I'm gonna go." Parker couldn't meet his eyes as she slipped from the stool, grinning like a mentalist, her own eyes smarting just a bit. From the hot smoking pan. No other reason.

"You know I'm right Parker." God his voice deepened and he was being kind again. Like he had been on the mountain. In the mountain. Like he had been so many times in so many small ways. Her heart hurt, and she refused to acknowledge his point. No matter how clear she got it.

"Eliot Spencer, is this your Nate impression of my daddy?" She risked a glance back, and paused when she saw him with his head lowered, so unlike the Eliot that broke heads and took on the world with a fuck you mentality she admired.

He looked up, and Parker saw her own secrets reflected in his gaze, and understood in a flash of bright light clarity why she couldn't be here any more.

"Hardison." She whispered the realisation with surprise, feeling stupid and exposed. And then curious.

"Hardison," Eliot agreed gruffly, sounding tired. He turned back to the pancakes and swore, before switching off the gas and ordering her to sit. "May as well eat the damn things now they're done."

Parker sat back down, her legs feeling rubbery. Blankly, she watched as he sat opposite, passing her the syrup and a napkin. Same as always, but suddenly, a whole new experience. His head tipped low as he began to eat, his shoulders filling her vision, his hands wielding the cutlery with a grace she oft tried to imitate when alone. Hitter had skills she wanted. Feeling foolish, she understood what he knew, and she had yet to admit to herself, and felt her cheeks burn. Eliot always knew too much, saw too much. She almost smiled at the thought of how he would answer if she asked how he had known.

_"It's a very distinctive..." _

Oh God, did that mean they all knew?

"Parker, it's just us. Nobody else. Stop freaking out."

"Seriously, get out of my head. How do you do that?" She made the Parker face, the one she directed at him so often, incredulous delight mixed with suspicion. She knew it worked on him.

"I don't have to mind read to know what you are thinking. Sophie may be a pill on occasion but she's one smart lady." Admiration, grudging or not coloured his tone and Parker found herself leaning forward, inexplicably annoyed at his compliment for the woman she loved so much.

"Did you do the mind funk on me?" She tried to sound intimidating but it came off impressed instead. She really did need to pay more attention to Sophie she figured. Just in order to hold a conversation without giving herself away. That idea was certainly new. And it was weird that of all people, Eliot would be the one she wanted to fool.

"No. Parker stop it. We just can't, do this any more." He growled and sounded like a pissed of teacher scolding a student which irritated her, but then she thought she heard confusion too, and it mollified her somewhat. The hitter was not solid as a rock on this issue. It was comforting.

"Because of Hardison." Why she was dragging it out she had no clue, just that this was the most words they had ever spoken to each other in such a private way, and suddenly she wished she had used their time together to say more.

"Yes. Well, hold up, no, not just because of Hardison. Because of you."

"Me? Why me? I just eat my pancakes and steal your CD's." She shrugged and ate the last mouthful from her plate, blowing her cheeks out to impersonate a chipmunk. He rolled his eyes.

"I knew you were doing that damn it! Parker, why not just ask like a normal person? I thought I was losing my mind with that shit. And yes, you. Of-course you."

"Eliot you have like the worst taste in music ever, I return them next visit. I don't get what this has to do with Hardison-"

"If you don't like the damn music why d'you take the damn CD's? Know what? Forget it."

"I am so not getting the logic of that statement." She cocked her head, watching him reign in his temper that blew up in her presence like clock work in the normal scheme of things. Now he was holding it back and it bothered her. A lot.

"Exactly honey. Which is why I am calling time on our midnight snacking sessions. This ain't fair."

"To who?"

"Anybody."

"Okay already I'll leave your CD's alone. So-rree." She span on her stool again, heart beating a little too fast.

"It's not about the CD's Parker!" Gritted teeth and hair blown from his forehead in a steamy blast of air like a kettle coming to the boil was more like the Eliot she was familiar with handling.

"I swear I will blow up your sandwich maker if you don't quit mind melding me." She grinned, and he let out a sigh before smiling back.

"Touch my sandwich maker and I'll call every security company in the city and warn them about crazy ass base jumpers getting hot for their roofs. Don't mess with me kid."

"I'm not a kid Eliot." Her tone was sharp and hurt, damn it, and Eliot was just trying to disengage as cleanly as possible yet this was getting more and more tangled. It was done. He couldn't, wouldn't be that guy. Not for Parker. Not for anyone.

"Whatever Parker, this isn't up for discussion. Tonight, we say goodnight and goodbye, to whatever, _this_ is." He used his fork to gesture between them. Parker screwed her nose up.

"What supper?" He growled again and she held her hands up."Okay okay. But what about when we have jobs together?" Her hands reached his wrist as he stood and went to clear the plates.

"What about it?" For a second he froze in place, dishes in his hands and her fingers circled his wrist before letting go.

"Who will I talk to after?" They both let the wording of her plaintive question slide, even though really, despite the odd rethink on a job, they sat in companionable silence most nights eating sweet pancakes. Or playing knife games or comparing lift techniques. He knew what she meant. That was how they talked after all. Without words usually. Which was probably why he was making such a mess of this he realised.

"Who d'ya think Parker?"

"I don't like change." So small, but defiant that voice. Eliot chanced a peek over his shoulder and sighed when he saw the pout, but more than that, the serious truth of her statement beyond the front. She was serious a lot more than people realised, she just dressed it up in frivolity in the hopes the world wouldn't catch on that she cared.

"I know. But this is a good thing for you. You two, you'll be fine." Man that had been harder to say than he anticipated. In all honesty, Hardison was a great guy, but with Parker? Eliot wasn't all that sure Hardison was ready to deal with her brand of crazy. Which wasn't really crazy at all.

"He likes me." Oh no, not having that discussion.

"You need to talk to him about it darlin', I am not the man for that job."

"I thought we were friends?"

"We are." Something he could never have foreseen but he wouldn't deny now.

"Then help me because I have no idea what I am doing. Sophie just doesn't understand me enough for her advice to count." Stripped bare of artifice, this was the Parker he saw that others didn't. Beyond the jokes, and the violent independent streak, was a deep seated confusion in matters others took for granted. Money could be counted and stored. Love ran out if it ever existed at all for Parker. She had no frame of reference for this at all.

"You think I do understand?" He was touched, no doubting it, despite her loopiness. She was like him, bold and brave and empty, filling up constantly just to stem the flow from the gaping wound were a heart should be. Adrenalin could only get you so far though. He was aware that Parker was aiming for more with the team, and his concern that she get hurt was palpable. Hardison wouldn't hurt her, he was sure of that. Didn't mean she wouldn't end up hurt anyway.

"Yes. What you said-on the mountain-it was true. It stung, but it was true."

"And?" He hadn't meant to say what he had in the first place up that damn mountain. It just came out. Altitude probably scrambling his brain.

"I don't know if he sees that in me. Like you do." Well how did he even begin to approach that bomb of a sentence? Calmly, he decided, as he began to fill the sink, and with a tact he wasn't sure he possessed.

"Parker." Be firm, he told himself.

"What?" Sullen and hopeful. Only Parker could be both light and dark in the same instant.

"He's a good man."

"I know." He could practically hear her eyes rolling as she said it. The duh was there loud and clear.

"We can't do this any more." He began to scrub the plates with a ferocity he was sure would dissolve the porcelain.

"What? Talk? Eat? Be friends?" Banter, but with a thinly veiled undercurrent of fear. She was more fragile than they realised, he thought, fiercely protective and yet determined. She needed this push. "Eliot are you trying to scare those plates clean?"

"Very funny. You know what I am talking about Parker, so stop with the cute already. You can't come here in the middle of the night looking for comfort when you have a guy at home willing to give it."

"I live alone." She sang it in an operatic style, and he muttered a prayer for his sanity.

"Stop it."

"Did you just call me cute?" The operatic stylings continued.

"Stop. It."

"So I can't visit you any more." No more singing.

"Yes. No. Shit Parker you started this, and I'm tryin' t'do the right thing here." Abruptly he shut off the faucet and stood with his back to the sink counter, head down, gripping the counter with his hands behind his back, searching for inspiration in the tiled flooring of his kitchen.

"For Hardison."

"For everybody. Just go home, go to sleep, and know you did a good thing this job. You gave her back her husband, and seeing as how he's dead that's a miracle in my book."

"We did do good didn't we?" She smiled, hands clasped on the table top."Hardison doesn't mind us being friends."

"That's debatable but okay." Hardison was less appreciative of their closeness than she could possibly fathom. It had been the look on H's face when they left the office together that had convinced Eliot that this was necessary, sooner rather than later.

"So I don't see-"

"He will mind darlin', once you guys...well he will."

"Would you?" The question was a sucker punch even the hitter could not combat and he fell silent as he reeled from the force of her query.

Silence. Parker found herself holding her breath, adrenalin rushing through her as if she had just jumped a skyscraper. In a way, she had.

"Yes." So quiet that confession. "If it were me, I would mind a hell of a lot."

"I would never break your sandwich maker." She teased, yet somehow it became a solemn vow that made him smirk in response and finally raise his head to answer.

"And I'd never stop you flyin' darlin'." She nodded, and he felt his chest constrict as he saw her there, looking young and innocent and comfortable. He felt like a mean sonofabitch for taking it away but he knew this road could lead to trouble fast, and worse, knew she was still getting to that understanding herself. He saw it time to time, did his best to ignore it, but it was there, that spark of something more than was good for either of them. Or the team.

"So, did I tell you about the new chute I designed?" She stood and picked up the syrup, strolling toward him at the counter like a cat. He shook his head, exasperated, yet oddly touched that she was struggling with this new world order maybe just as much as he was. And he really was he realised, feeling like a schmuck.

"Nope, and do not even ask me to test it like the last one-"

"Oh com'on don't be such a baby. It just needed a few tweaks to perfect it." Breezily she stood beside him, arms folded, nudging his shoulder and he was torn between laughter and outrage at her casual dismissal of his sacrifice.

"Parker I ended up in traction for a fortnight."

"Yes, but you also got a new sandwich maker. Which has lasted way longer."

"That I did." He smiled at her infallible reasoning, too tired to force it further and turned, his eyes meeting hers as she leant on the counter beside him. She looked back, and for a moment, she was the damaged soul beneath the sunshine and lunacy, and he was the protector, desperate to heal all because he couldn't heal himself. When she edged toward him, so they stood hip to hip, he didn't push her away. Letting her head fall to rest on his shoulder, he stared at the wall opposite, and wondered how all this would end. Because it would.

"I'm not ready yet." Parker whispered it, and then when he stiffened, added, " to go home. I'm all jangly."

"I know you aren't." He didn't qualify his gruff comment or the sigh that accompanied it, instead. he let go of the counter and threw an arm about her shoulder easily. "Com'on. Let's go test your damn chute."

She clapped like a kid, and hugged him entirely unlike one, pressing in tight to his side, and he swallowed down the inappropriate response his body had to her closeness.

"No more midnight visits Parker." Because he didn't give a hoot in a hat about the team when she got up in his space and was all adorable and hot. And his job was protection, not hurting whatever others thought.

"Would break ins be acceptable?"

Eliot Spencer rolled his eyes toward heaven, and bit down the retort that sprung to mind. Disaster, he decided, as his thief span away and raided his music once more as if he weren't watching. This would end in disaster. But he would catch her when she fell. Like always.


End file.
